


The Little Toad Priestess

by catness



Category: Fairy Tales and Related Fandoms, The Little Mermaid - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Funny, Parody, Science Fiction & Fantasy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-15
Updated: 2013-05-15
Packaged: 2017-12-11 22:51:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/804148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catness/pseuds/catness





	The Little Toad Priestess

Once upon a time, when Delta Triton IV still bloomed with forests and swamps, it was a happy home to the native civilization of Uzuku who lived in peace and quiet, worshiping the Great Toad and sacrificing a tribe member to him every cycle, as well as a bonus victim on seasonal holidays.

One perfectly ordinary evening Ar'He-elah, the youngest priestess of the Temple of Toad, awakened to a commotion in the neighborhood. She climbed out of her sleeping pond and gracefully waddled to the direction of the noise, which was coming from the main hall of the temple. It appeared that two servants were just finishing to tie a strange creature to the feeding pole. The creature was vaguely similar to Uzuku but it was taller, its limbs were straight and its skin was bare and smooth all over, save for various cuts, bruises and clumps of dark fur here and there. 

"What's that and why have you brought it into the temple?" asked the priestess. 

The servants quacked: "This is a human from the alien tribe of humans, and we brought him here on the orders of Mistress Ur'So-elah, so your Wartiness could use it as a sacrifice for the bountiful harvest."

"Ah, human tribe." Ar'He-elah had heard about that bothersome settlement located in the wastelands just outside of the Sacred Swamp, but being busy with her temple duties, meditations and other responsibilities, she never gave it an extra thought. "How come we have to go and catch ugly aliens for our rituals? Isn't there a rich supply of plump young virgins in the ponds?"

"We didn't catch him on the wastelands, your Wartiness, he was the one who wandered into our realm, either by mistake or looking for trouble. We had promptly delivered him to our mistress, and when she decided that the human is of no more use in her studies, she sent him to the temple in hope that his last service would be to the Great Toad."

Mistress Ur'So-elah was unpopular among the clergy, being more-or-less an outcast due to holding science in far higher regard than magic, but it was a nice gesture from her to recognize the authority of the Toad priestess. Ar'He-elah flicked her long tongue in delight. "All right. Thank you, F'Lout-sam and J'Ehet-sam, you may go."

The servants bowed in reverence and floated away. The priestess approached the captive and started to examine him with great curiosity. His body looked hideous, so different from her own people, but this ugliness was fascinating and even strangely attractive. She run her webbed finger down his chest, amazed by softness of his skin, smooth as a tadpole's belly. The vines tying him to the sacrificial pole dug deep into his chest which was heaving up and down with every labored breath. Multiple cuts and scratches were bleeding, most likely through the efforts of old Ur'So-elah, who was known to be rather unscrupulous in her research methods. Even though Ar'He-elah knew nothing about human physiology, she could easily deduce that the captive was exhausted and on the brink of collapse. However there was no fear in his blue eyes, and when she reached into his mind (a talent possessed by every priestess of the Temple of Toad), she found amazing defiance and courage.

And there were plenty of other fascinating things in his mind as well. She couldn't understand most of them as his thoughts swirled in dazzling and complicated maelstroms, so unlike the familiar placid Uzuku thought-patterns, but she could catch glimpses of exotic landscapes, bizarre creatures, intricate machinery and intense emotions.

Oh a whim, she decided that the human deserved a different fate than being fed to the Great Toad. He was an alien and didn't belong here; his true destiny lied elsewhere. Of course, he could not be allowed to wander off freely, because then his tribe would unite against Uzuku, and the last thing her people wanted was to engage in a war with a powerful and sophisticated enemy; they were content to keep their existence a secret from the unwelcome visitors. The only solution was a partial mind-wipe - a simple procedure for someone with her skill.

She placed her webbed hands on both sides of his head, pressing them to his temples, and started a mental chant. After several verses his eyes closed, breathing stabilized, and the whirlwind of his thoughts calmed down, becoming a deep, quiet pool. She carefully stripped the outer layers of his memories, stopping at the point where he had entered the Sacred Swamp and a huge tree crashed the hull of his funny whale-like vehicle. Then she summoned her assistant, F'Loun-der, and told him to carry the sleeping human back to the edge of the wastelands and leave him outside.

And thus the incident was closed. But ever since that fateful day Ar'He-elah could not stop thinking of the captive. She returned over and over to those fascinating things she saw in his mind, comparing them to the tranquil monotony of her temple life, and her desire for new experiences grew and grew until she became positively obsessed. 

She had asked the other priestesses for an advice. Some of them had met humans before, but they were never interested in those ugly creatures apart of using them for an occasional sacrifice, and they couldn't understand what Ar'He-elah saw in aliens. The only thing they could help with was pointing her to a storage cave that contained a few human possessions, such as clothes, bags, metal disks and other artifacts. She spent countless hours playing with those treasures, but they only kindled her curiosity.

In the end the young priestess resorted to going to Mistress Ur'So-elah. Like everyone, she was wary of the old sorceress' nasty character and bizarre hobbies, but after all, Ur'So-elah was the most knowledgeable person in the swamp, not to mention that she was the one who had got her hands on the human in the first place. 

Despite the rumors, Ur'So-elah appeared to be kind and understanding. She said that the intricacies of human society and culture were a mystery to her as well, because she herself was primarily interested in alien biology, physiology, genetics and similar matters, but if Ar'He-elah wanted to experience human life firsthand, it was entirely possible to transform her into a human female. The priestess was excited beyond belief, and even after learning about the requirements of this procedure she was determined to try it out. 

The requirements were rather severe. First, the sorceress warned her that not only the transformation itself would hurt, but her new body would never stop suffering from excruciating pain. Second, she demanded a fee for her services - Ar'He-elah's telepathic powers. It had happened so that Ur'So-elah had a rare disability: she was not born a telepath, her mind couldn't even open to anyone else's thoughts, and that was one of the reasons she became disenchanted with magic. It took her many cycles to find out which brain area was responsible for telepathy and how it was possible to transplant it from one person to another.

This request greatly distressed Ar'He-elah who almost called the trade off, complaining that the lack of telepathic abilities would render her helpless in the unfamiliar world. But the sorceress convinced her that it would be only for better, as free access to the multitude of alien minds would drive her crazy in a day. "Such a smart and pretty female as you will become, my dear," she said, "will adjust nicely without any of these mind tricks."

The third requirement was the hardest of all. Ur'So-elah admitted that she could not make the transformation permanent. "Science, just like magic, has its boundaries," she said. The transformation was to be accomplished with genetic material extracted from the human's reproductive organs (Ur'So-elah was thrifty and kept everything that remained after her experiments), and the new body would require constant replenishment of the said material, which had to be injected inside via the human act of copulation. Ur'So-elah warned specifically that the intercourse was to be performed with that exact human and no one else, otherwise the results would be unpredictable, most likely disastrous. In the absence of such replenishment, Ar'He-elah's new body would quickly deteriorate and eventually expire. "But surely a smart and pretty female like you won't have any problem with getting your subject to copulate every now and then," Ur'So-elah reassured her.

And thus it was settled and done. Loyal F'Lout-sam and J'Ehet-sam carried the former priestess to the edge of the forest, as she was now poorly equipped to travel through the swamps on her own, and left her outside on the wastelands. Then they reported back to their mistress. 

"Hope I've heard the last of that stupid wench!" she said. Her plan worked out fabulously. She had figured out long ago that the youngest priestess had a subconscious urge for everything weird and unusual, so she decided that shipping the alien to the temple could trigger that urge, and then it would become a good pretext for luring her into the lab and stealing her telepathic powers. She didn't expect Ar'He-elah to become so obsessed as to submit to the operation willingly, which turned out to be quite convenient.

Meanwhile, the young woman was sprawled on the hot dry sand, unable to move and feeling like a fish out of the water. Every bone in her new body ached, and her internal organs hurt even more. The ill-fitting alien clothes, borrowed from the storage, were stiff and itchy against her skin which was so thin, it seemed that it could be peeled off just by breathing on it. 

Finally she was discovered by two men, dressed in garb similar to her own. "Where the hell did you come from?!" asked one of them. By some magic, Ar'He-elah could understand his speech just fine.

"F-from the f-forest," she stuttered, struggling to control her new tongue - it was tiny and extremely clumsy, and she couldn't even flick it out of her mouth for more than a couple of inches.

"I've never seen you around the base, what unit you're from?" asked the second man.

Ar'He-elah couldn't answer this question and just gaped in confusion.

"What's your ID?"

"I... don't know."

"How come your uniform is old-style?"

"I don't know." Never in her life she felt so helpless and disoriented.

"Hey, she's got amnesia," interfered the first man. "Remember what had happened to the captain a few weeks ago? We found him at this exact spot, all beaten up and bleeding, and he had no clue what had hit him. Those damn swamps are no good, that's all I can say."

"Let's take her to the captain and he'll decide what to do," they agreed.

They helped the young woman to get up and walked her to their settlement. Every step was torturous as if scores of sharp quills pierced her feet, but her heart sang with delight because she believed that she was being brought to the human of her dreams. And it was indeed so. They entered a strange rectangular dwelling where her human was sitting at the desk made of wood and plastic (she noted with pleasure that she knew all those terms), and upon seeing her, he stood up and stretched his lips in a peculiar way which she recognized as a sign of affection and welcome.

He started asking her questions, but the only thing she could tell about herself was her name. "Argh...ela", she mumbled, realizing that Uzuku names were unpronounceable for a human tongue.

"Say that again? Ella?" 

She nodded, already loving the new name he gave her.

"A beautiful name for a beautiful woman. I'm Eric. Captain Eric Prince. It's good to meet you." He smiled again. "You must be from the previous squad - the one which had mysteriously disappeared two years ago. How did you manage to survive all this time, all alone in the forest?"

"I don't remember anything," she insisted.

"All right, don't worry about it. I'll look you up in the database when the next supply ship comes from Earth, and we'll find a way to contact your family. In the meantime, feel free to stay around, and let's hope you recover quickly."

So everything turned out very well. Ella was allocated a room in the same barrack where the captain himself resided, and she was provided with clothes and rations. Eric was kind and generous and took personal responsibility for her. When he was off duty, they spent hours in friendly and engaging conversations. He filled her in on the Earth culture and customs, seeing that the damage to her memory was exhaustive, which he attributed to spending two years in the noxious forest. The only problem was that he didn't seem to be interested in moving beyond the point of friendship. He paid no attention to her sexy glances and accidental touches, and politely wished her good night at the door of her room without ever attempting to give her a kiss. She wondered if it always went that slow with humans.

The idyll lasted for a few days, until Ella realized that her perpetual pain, which she had already accepted as a given, was worsening. And it was not her imagination. When she examined herself in the mirror, she noticed that her skin, previously so fair and soft, started to toughen and crack, her hair lost its lustrous shine and became dry and brittle, and her delicate face acquired hard wrinkles and dark circles around her eyes. She had to struggle with nausea every time she swallowed a bit of food, and walking made her queasy.

Erik was also worried. Once, when they were strolling in the back yard and a sudden gust of wind caused Ella to stumble and fall, he insisted that she had to go and see the doctor immediately.

"No need, I know exactly what's wrong with me," said Ella. "You may be surprised to hear it, but you're the only one who can help me."

"You know I'm ready to do anything for my friends," he said, "so consider it done."

"Wonderful! To be healthy again, I need to have sex with you."

"To have sex?!" His jaw dropped in astonishment. "You have a crush on me? God, I had no idea..."

She blushed. "It's too long to explain, but I swear it's imperative for my health, and if we don't have sex, I'll be dead in a couple of days."

"Oh crap..." He shifted from foot to foot and rubbed his chin. "Listen, Ella. I understand that unrequited love is painful and it can make you sick, but this is something I can't help you with."

"But why?!" she pleaded, tears welling up in her eyes.

"Because... look, it's nothing personal. You are a lovely girl, smart and beautiful and all, and I really enjoy spending time with you. But even if I wanted to oblige you, I'm unable to have sex with a woman. Women don't turn me on. That's just how I'm wired. Where intimate relationships are concerned, I'm only interested in men."

This unexpected confession was a heavy blow to poor Ella; she buried her face in her hands and wept bitterly. If it had only occurred to the old sorceress to make her a male, she thought, everything would've worked out! But of course, who could ever think of such a beastly obstacle?

"Come on, Ella," said Eric, patting her shoulder, "don't be so dramatic. I'm sure you'll get over it. How about finding yourself a nice boyfriend - you know that half of the base is dying to get to know you closer, and if you only gave somebody a chance..."

"No, no, you don't understand... I'm as good as dead now!" She shook his hand off and run back to her room, where she crashed on the bed and cried herself to sleep.

As for Eric, he just shrugged and went to the warehouse to fetch a crate of beer, because tonight his lover, Billy Joe from the transportation unit, was coming back from an expedition, and he wanted to celebrate the reunion. He was sorry for Ella, but women were always hysterical and unpredictable - one more reason to stay clear of them. He was certain that she would forget about the incident in a few days, and then they would be good friends again.

Ella woke up in the middle of the night because of an insistent voice in her mind calling her real name: "Ar'He-elah!" It was an almost forgotten sensation. She tried to reach back to the mind of the person on the other end of the telepathic link, but she couldn't. She could only listen and reply. 

The voice belonged to the Eldest Priestess, Aq'Uo-atah. She sounded concerned. "Ar'He-elah, can you hear me at all?"

"Yes, I hear you just fine. How did you manage to reach me?"

"Through Ur'So-elah's long-range thought transceiver."

"No kidding? She never allows anyone to use her machinery!"

Aq'Uo-atah chuckled. "I can be persuasive when necessary." 

There was a lot of background noise, more specifically, howls and shrieks, almost as if Aq'Uo-atah stood next to someone who was writhing in pain, but Ella didn't have time for gossip. "It's lucky you contacted me, Sister, because one day later you probably wouldn't catch me alive. At least now we can say goodbyes to each other."

"This is exactly why I'm calling. You do not have to die, everything still can be fixed."

"Really?" Ella's heart skipped a beat. 

"Yes, I have discussed it with Ur'So-elah," the elder priestess chuckled again, "and she came up with a solution to restore your Uzuku body."

"Oh. No way to keep the human one?"

"Forget your stupid obsession already and listen. Is your selected human's reproductive appendage permanently attached to its body?"

"Yes, it is, why do you ask?" Ella was quite proud of her knowledge of humans by now, but it was weird for Aq'Uo-atah to be interested in such details.

"Good, then you don't have to search for it. What you have to do is to take any sharp instrument, cut that appendage off and insert it into the orifice that human females use for the purpose of reproduction - I believe you know where to find it. It will give your native immune system a boost, and you'll have enough time to get out of that place as fast as you can before you transform back into Uzuku. Then you can return to us and live happily ever after."

"Oh. But he can die if I cut it off, or at any rate he will become crippled forever!"

"So what? It's just a human!"

"Perhaps it's possible to take this piece from a different human?"

"No. It had occurred to me too that it would be easier to pick the first available one, but Ur'So-elah was very explicit about it. She said that she personally doesn't care if you mutilate all the alien population of the planet, in fact it would be a very good idea, especially if they catch you and do you in - well, you know how nasty the old bitch is - but if you get it from any other human except for the original one whose genetic samples were used for your transformation, the result will be unpredictable."

"Well, then I'll do what you say. Thanks for the advice!"

"But hurry up, Sister, it may be your last night."

"I know it all too well. Don't worry, I'm going for the knife already."

"See you in the Temple!" 

And Ella's mind was silent again. But now she knew what to do. She grabbed a sharp kitchen knife from the sink and sneaked out of the room, down the corridor to Eric's room. 

He had programmed her keycard to give her access to his room in case of emergency, and it turned out handy. She tiptoed into the room and froze, staring at two naked men sleeping soundly in the same bed.

"What a slug!" hissed Ella, upon getting a good look at Eric's partner. It was a fat middle-aged man with a flabby belly and crooked legs, florid-faced and balding, ugly both by Uzuku and human standards. And this was what had forever separated her from her beloved?! Eric, on the other hand, was even more handsome when naked. He looked so peaceful, with a vague smile playing on his lips; his strong, shapely legs were slightly spread apart, and most frustratingly, his requisite organ was fully erect.

She raised her knife but couldn't force herself to bring it down. No... even though she had to leave him, she couldn't bear the thought of crippling him. Most likely Ur'So-elah was simply jealous and tried to push her into doing something she would regret till the end of her life. The other man's organ, also erect, was longer and thicker. Wouldn't it be an even better substitution?

Decision was made. Ella turned to the other man, and with one sweep of the knife, hacked off his penis; then she hastily shoved it under her skirt, into the place where it was supposed to enter, because she was impatient to see the effects.

The effects followed without delay. First, the victim popped his eyes open and burst into an ear-splitting howl, clasping the stump with the blood fountaining out of it. Second, Ella's body started to swell and bulge in all directions, growing fins, tentacles, claws and all kinds of appendages she had never even heard of. Alas, the old sorceress was telling the truth - Sister Aq'Uo-atah was not easy to cheat.

And third, the noise awakened Eric. Upon seeing a hideous monster that apparently assaulted his boyfriend and was now after him, he grabbed the plasma gun from the nightstand and poured a stream of fire at the intruder until it was reduced to a handful of ashes.

***

Billy Joe made a full recovery (if one could call it recovery when you're deprived of your most cherished bits) and left the base on the first outgoing ship, having declared that he would never set foot in this accursed place again. Eric hardly noticed his partner's absence, as well as the disappearance of his female friend, who, as everyone assumed, was devoured by the monster. Ever since that night he was not quite the same man he used to be. He became absentminded and unfocused and got into a habit of walking to the edge of the forest and sitting there for hours. He claimed that there were voices talking to him from the thicket, though he could never understand what they were saying.

One day he was found dead on his favorite spot, with brains blown out from his own blaster lying by his hand. The death was ruled out to be a suicide, even despite a couple of bizarre details. The body was missing the penis, brutally severed at the base, and there was a cryptic note in Eric's handwriting, pinned to the ground with a bloody knife. The note said: "Forgive me, Ella. You can have it now."

Earth had already considered bringing Delta Triton IV into shape by getting rid of the unhealthy and hazardous native flora, and the suicide of Captain Prince was the last straw. Next ship brought the extermination squad, equipped with an arsenal of bombs and rayguns, and soon all the forests were razed to the ground. It was a surprise when remnants of unusual and undeniably artificial constructions were discovered upon surveying the surface after the explosions, but destroying a native alien civilization would've meant extensive paperwork and possible repercussions for everyone involved, so the team had unanimously decided to drop a few extra bombs on every ruin and to be done with it.

Since the planet became suitable for large scale construction projects, a huge spaceport was erected in place of the swamp, equipped with the full range of conveniences for the travelers who had to catch the connecting flight, including the hotel complex with the shops, cinemas, casinos and other hallmarks of civilization. 

There was one creepy thing, though, about the hotel. It happened so that all the guests who stayed overnight were plagued by nightmares. Women dreamed that they got transformed into bloated monsters. So the first thing a woman traveler would do in the morning was running to the mirror and checking the size and shape of her body. Then she usually would leave the breakfast untouched, save for the green tea and salad, and she would refuse the complimentary cookie. As for men, their nightmares were even more terrifying. The traveler dreamed of a beautiful woman approaching him with a knife and urging him to have sex with her under the threat of chopping off his penis. The dreamer usually agreed, but no matter how he tried, he couldn't get it up. So upon awakening, the first thing he would do is reaching into his underwear and checking that all the equipment was still in one piece, and then he would test if it still worked. For that reason the Delta Triton IV spaceport had a permanent record for the number of passengers missing their connecting flights. 

Once a team of psychologists from Earth attempted to research the phenomenon, but their efforts never produced any results, and the researchers had suffered from the nightmares so bad that eventually the project was canceled, so the curious effect forever remained a mystery.

As old Ur'So-elah used to say, "Science, just like magic, has its boundaries."


End file.
